fou and its usage 否

[opper567]

I recently learned the word 否定 in my chinese class. I know that this word means to negate. However, does 否 mean 不是? Is it a type of 书面语? Can I write something like 他否是我朋友?

Does 非 also have the same meaning?

Thanks

[Jeremy@TCE]

I recently learned the word 否定 in my chinese class. I know that this word means to negate. However, does 否 mean 不是? Is it a type of 书面语? Can I write something like 他否是我朋友?

Does 非 also have the same meaning?

Thanks

Never seen 否 used in the way you describe as far as I can remember. 非 is usually a kind of not modifier to a particular word - kind of like 非常 means "not-normal/ordinary" (extraordinary).

Basically all three are usually used to negate something, but they are far from interchangeable.

[gougou]

否 you will mostly come across in combinations like 是否 (meaning the same as 是不是) and 能否 (meaning 能不能). While I rarely heard it in spoken Chinese, I've seen it in writing plenty of times (particularly in questionnaires, where many of the questions will use a 是否 construction, e.g. 您是否觉得chinese-forums.com有用？

[Han-tiger]

A. subject + be + not +object

eg. He is not my friend. In Chinese, “他不是我的朋友”. Although “否” means “非，不是”, we never say”他否是我朋友” or ”他否我朋友”. Because, (1) “否” does not function in such a sentence structure in the same way that “不是”does. (2) “否是” is not a Chinese phrase at all, we’ve never seen it.

B. “非” has a meaning of “不，不是”. It used to be a hot word in ancient time of China when coming to say “no” or “not”. While “然” is an opposite word to “非”. “然” (“yes”) and “非” (“no”) are very rarely used by modern Chinese.

[cdn_in_bj]

"非" (in combination with other words) and "是否" are used a lot here in business settings.